On the dresser, the picture had dried completely, and Gia held it by the white edge, sitting on the bed to look it over, brushing her thumb against the stretch of glorious muscle and dips that made up his torso. He was beautiful. He was kind and good and would make a mess of someone’s life, but not like he’d predicted, Gia’s.
No one would do that to her again.
Gia closed her eyes and his face surfaced. Not the strong, angular edges of Joe’s bones, but ones that were rounded, softer, and much more appealing. Ones that had been seared into her memory like a brand she’d never be rid of.
“Enough,” she told herself, leaving the bed to kneel in front of the open suitcase near the bathroom door. It was the smallest but held the things Gia couldn’t part with; the things she’d keep close on the plane. Important things. Necessary things.
In the farthest corner of the bag, under a neatly folded pair of jeans and cotton Blue Devils t-shirt—the ‘in case we get stuck in an airport’ emergency outfit—Gia pulled free a small cigar box. It was the same kind of box she’d carried to elementary school as a kid, full of pencils and pens and pink erasers that left marks and smudges on the page after use. The top creaked a bit when she opened it to pull out a wrinkled, well-worn Ziploc bag. This was where Gia would keep Joe. This was where they all lived—those men she’d loved. Dark skin and eyes. Wide mouths and full lips. Names like Joe and Arturo and Rua. Jose and Ricky, Randel and Nelson. All lived in this bag, hidden beneath the top of the cigar box that still smelled like Mrs. Howard’s fifth grade classroom.
Men she’d let have her, but never keep for long.
Joe’s picture slipped on top of the others and Gia meant to zip it up, forget the night they’d had and the months before it. She meant to forget his warning like she planned to do the recall of his touch and the strength of his tongue. But that promise he made wasn’t the first she’d heard of it. Joe wasn’t the first to swear this bitterness inside Gia wouldn’t serve her forever. But he was the first to promise her she’d want something she’d had before: the mess love always made.
The kind you never want to be out of.
The last picture in the bunch was the oldest and the one Gia had held the most. There were more of them, too, five, ten maybe, with the same face, the same sweet, genuine smile, the same strong arms and the same faint cleft in his chin.
She’d loved him blindly.
She’d loved him without any hesitation.
But loving him had nearly killed her.
Luka Hale stared up at her from the Polaroid in Gia’s hand and she felt the same swift thrilling rumbling pulse inside her chest as she looked at him. He was beautiful and frustrating and very, very honest.
And once, Luka had made the biggest mess of Gia’s life. Twenty years later and she still hadn’t recovered.
She wondered if she ever would.
2.
GIA
CLAIBORNE PROSPER UNIVERSITY
NEW ORLEANS
1997
There was nothing Gia loved more than football.
Nothing.
It was the dirt and grit and battle to win that she loved most. It was the fight and athleticism and thrill that set on you when your team scored or stole or did miraculous things to win a game. It felt like life, real, honest life being lived out on that field and Gia had never felt anything that matched up to the sensation—not in church or in a classroom or at her mother’s large dining room table.
But what she really loved most, was the CPU Blue Devils, especially right there in that moment on that small, lush field. Kona Hale had just sacked Auburn’s wiry quarterback and the crowd had jumped to their feet; the roar of noise they made drowned out the loud rebukes of frustration coming from that wave of blue and orange on the other side of the field.
“Yes!” her uncle Mikey shouted when Hale made the sack. He hadn’t stopped yelling or slapping Hale’s back when he and his twin Luka made it back onto the sidelines. “Did you see that?” Mikey asked Gia, grinning like a fool when she nodded. “Here, Hale…here…” He pointed to the linebacker, waving Gia over so she could fill the guy’s mouth with water from the squeeze bottle she held. She hustled, seeming